Managing the network with Cfengine

Conclusion

Now that your Cfengine framework is configured, here are a few ideas for continued improvements:

Centralize periodically executed jobs

Integrate the monitoring and deployment systems by having cf-agent automatically configure monitors

Integrate your backup system with your deployment system

Make sure all of your nodes are configured to log centrally

The more functionality you bring within Cfengine's realm, the easier it will be to bring new services online and to recover from problems such as hardware failures or security compromises. Because you can code all the rules on how to create a node of type X in a machine-executable language, all you need to do is prepare a fresh base OS install, then install Cfengine and let it rebuild your replacement node for you.

Related content

Professional admins with tightening IT budgets are always looking for new tools that will help them do more with less. This month we feature some popular open source applications for deploying, configuring, updating, and monitoring software and systems on the network.